Carpophilus beetles are a serious pest of ripening fruit in Australia.
They have the potential to cause heavy fruit losses when the beetle bore into ripening fruit, causing breakdown and spreading brown rot.
In the Gouburn and Murray Valley areas, there is a lot of split-stone in stonefruit this season, giving the beetle a very nice, safe and secure place to feed.
Usually the main entry point for this insect is around the stem area, where they bore into the shoulder of the fruit. They also enter through splits and cracks in the fruit.
Carpophilus Beetle are also known as dried fruit beetles or sap beetles, are a worldwide pest of many fruit.
Adult Carpophilus are small at around 3mm long, oblong shaped beetles with short wing covers such that the end of the abdomen is not covered and have clubbed antennae.
They can be black, brown or mottled yellow. Larvae are yellowish with a brown head and forked tail and are about 5mm long when fully grown.
Ideal conditions for large populations
The wet winter and spring this season resulted in conditions for Carpophilus beetle to breed up, together with split-stone and cracks and split fruit resulted in ideal conditions and a high population that we are now seeing in orchards.
Management
Poor orchard hygiene (i.e. fruit left on and under trees) and poor hygiene around packing sheds is a major cause of the beetle surviving and increasing in early spring, to the point where the beetle is a major pest by early summer.
Fallen fruit should be destroyed. Sweeping fruit from under drip lines and mulching is an option, especially fruit under trees.
This has the effect of breaking the life cycle of the beetle.
There is a wide variation in susceptibility of different stone fruit varieties to Carpophilus, the ‘Carpophilus Catcha Trapping System’ attract-and-kill traps are used to treat only the most susceptible fruit tree varieties. Carpophilus populations often tend to build up in the untreated, less-susceptible varieties and then migrate to ripening, more-susceptible varieties in neighbouring areas. This compromises the ability of attract-and-kill traps to control the pest in the treated orchards.
(continued next month)
See this article in Tree Fruit Jan 2017
